Abortion: An Evaluation of Ethics

Abortion

For those of you who are not aware, abortion is a procedure that removes an unborn human from a pregnant woman in a way that results in its death. I will evaluate abortion in detail and provide logical reasoning that will hopefully help people make sense of this often misunderstood issue.

The Emotional Pitfall

Abortion is a very emotional issue that has evoked passionate responses on both sides of the political spectrum for decades. Some believe that everyone should have the right to choose which decision is morally acceptable for them; while others believe that all human life should be protected from conception (the point when the mother’s egg is fertilized by the father’s sperm cell) onwards. Whatever your stance, there is no denying the deep-rooted feelings on both sides. Unfortunately, these emotions have anchored this debate into a political quagmire. This is understandable. Both sides love to talk about the opposing position’s negative effects in a way that is bound to stir an emotional response. But if you are attacking an opponent’s position with the intent of appealing to their heart you are forgetting one important thing: different people react emotionally to different things. Some people will never see the tragedy in your point; they’re too busy seeing the tragedy in theirs! Rarely is logic called upon to defend a person’s opinion when it comes to this issue. I am here to try and change that. Logic can help us evaluate an issue properly. A proper analysis will help us get past all of that emotional baggage and see an issue for what it truly is.

Pregnancy; What’s Going On In There?

Before anything else, we must establish some scientific facts about pregnancy and human life in general.

First, being human is a developing process, not a frozen state. When the sperm of the Father and the egg of the Mother are joined this process begins. At this point a single cell is formed which splits into two cells, which then split into more. This process, known as mitosis, continues and as a result the organism grows and matures. This process won’t stop until you die. Even as you read this your cells continue to reproduce by splitting, which is necessary even in mature human bodies because it replaces cells that have died.

Second, the unborn child is alive. From conception onwards humans exhibit all seven traits that are agreed upon by the scientific community to distinguish the non-living from the living. These are metabolism, capacity for growth, adaptation, cellular organization, response to stimuli, maintenance of homeostasis, and reproduction by cell division. Zygotes, embryos and fetuses (fancy terms for unborn babies at different stages of development) meet all of these seven requirements.

Third, the unborn child is human. It is important to remember that humans are not human because of the things they can do, but rather humans can perform many activities unique to theirs species because they have reached certain stages in their human development. What makes us human is our distinct DNA. When the egg is fertilized by the sperm, each sex cell contributes 23 chromosomes, giving this new human the full complement of 46 chromosomes that will guide the human’s development for the rest of its life. Chromosomes are coiled pieces of DNA, and each chromosome will define a different set of features of the human they belong to. DNA is like a blueprint or a recipe that is present in every cell in your body. DNA tells your cells how you will be constructed and human DNA tells your cells to be constructed like a human. Unborn babies whose parents are human receive human DNA that instructs their bodies to develop like humans, and therefore must be human as well.

Fourth, the unborn child is joined to the mother, but is still a separate and individual entity to the mother. Both the mother and the child have different DNA, which is obvious. It is easy to mistake the fetus for an extension of the mother’s body, but the idea of it being an extension of another human is false. The unborn child’s development and cellular functions are dependent upon the mother’s body for sustenance (just as we are dependent on exterior sources for sustenance), but these functions are not regulated by the mother’s body. The womb is an environment that accommodates the fetus, but the development that occurs is not controlled by the womb or any other part of the mother’s body. It is the child’s own DNA that provides direction. If the child was a part of the mother’s body, the mother’s body would control development as if it were one of her organs. Because the mother’s body does not control development of this living entity, it stands to reason that it is not another organ but is instead a foreign entity, and is thus a separate and individual entity.

In short, the unborn child is in fact an individual human organism and is clearly a separate entity from its mother. Sentience and autonomy are not requirements for being human; they are results of the process that develops humans. I’ve found that many humans like to pat themselves on the back for being sentient and autonomous, not wanting to think for once that they were ever anything less than this.

Human Value

Humans possess an uncanny awareness of their own value. It is easy for a human to understand that they are valuable in some way, even if they don’t understand why. We do not gain value due to our ability to introspect and contemplate; we simply become aware of our value because of these qualities. Because we value our own lives and try to protect them, we can easily deduct from the similar behaviors of others that they perceive value in their own lives as well. The whole reason we choose to stay alive is because we believe that there is a reason to stay alive. Being a living human gives us value, whether we are willing to acknowledge it or not.

Human Rights

Freedoms are defined as things we can do. Rights, on the other hand can be thought of as the protected freedoms we can legally exercise within our society. Society uses the Government as a means to protect and regulate the rights of everyone living within that society. We are expected to respect each other’s rights if we expect to have our own rights respected. The Government makes many freedoms illegal. At first glance this seems a bit counter-productive but in reality it makes perfect sense. Some freedoms deny freedom to other people. Murder, rape and theft are excellent examples of these. Murder denies somebody the right to life, rape denies the right to abstain from sexual acts, and theft denies the right to own property. These freedoms violate the basic freedoms of others and are therefore illegal.

One important property of rights is that they correlate with our abilities. We have the right to free speech and thought because we can think and speak. We have the right to autonomy when we are fit to make our own decisions. We have the right to life because we are alive.

The most essential freedom we have is that of life. Without life, we cannot exercise any rights. Any human who is denied the right to life is denied all other rights. Life must be protected first before any other freedoms. Neglecting to protect life on the basis that such protection would deny freedoms to other humans is an exercise in futility. If life is being denied as a fundamental right on these pretenses you automatically fail the objective of protecting freedom because the freedom to be alive has been denied. That is why murder is illegal.

Brining It All Together

The unborn child is a living human organism and is a separate entity to the mother. It is a human and therefore deserves human rights. It is living, and should therefore be guaranteed the right to life. Being pro-choice supports a person’s freedom to deny a living human the right to life on the basis that women should have rights but fetuses should not have rights. This is an arbitrary allocation of human rights. All humans deserve human rights.

Abortion; The Fatal Contradiction

Abortion proponents often talk about this issue as being about freedom to make personal choices and feminist rights. I am going to explain what is so wrong with those ideas.

First, as long as people expect their own rights to be protected and respected by the Government, there are certain rights that should never be given to people. Killing another human is one of these. Murder is a freedom we do not have because of the way it denies freedom to others. Claiming that killing another human is an issue of choice shows an utter disregard for the freedoms of others. When a fetus is aborted a human is killed. Humans should have their right to life protected, therefore abortion should not be allowed by the Government.

Second, abortion does not protect women’s rights. Female babies lose their lives to abortion all the time. If protecting the rights of women is truly the objective, women should have their rights protected no matter what their stage of development is. If you say that you support abortion because you support women’s rights then you are contradicting yourself because your support for abortion shows an inherent lack of support for women’s lives.

What can we do about unwanted pregnancies and low income families?

The proper solution to these problems is not denying the right to life to fellow human beings. When the mother is unable to care for a child she can put it up for adoption or foster care. If foster care has problems, the solution is to fix those problems instead of complaining about how terrible they are. In regards to low income families, it is easy enough to support them with the basic necessities.

Thanks for your time

I hope this evaluation has brought some clarity to this issue. I would love to hear what everyone thinks about this, good or bad.

God Bless.